New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.